DIRECTOR OF NURSING VOLUNTEERS IN LOUISIANA

Barb Williams dispensing pharmaceuticals off the back of a pick-up truck in New Orleans.

Grace Cottage’s Director of Nursing, Barb Williams volunteered to help immediately upon hearing about the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina. She was sent to Baton Rouge on November 18th, and she made the following observations about her ten days in Louisiana:

“I was housed at the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired in Baton Rouge, and I had to commute two hours each way to Rampart Street in New Orleans. My primary assignment was to fill prescriptions from the tailgate of a pickup truck. Normally, I am not permitted to fill prescriptions without a pharmacist to approve the fill, but I was ‘federalized’ because it was an emergency situation, legally allowing me to go outside my normal scope of practice. We saw about 130-140 patients per day. All prescription labels had to be handwritten, and it was a real challenge to fill the bottles from the tailgate when the work space is never level, people are trying to get by you, and the wind is blowing. We had to set everything up in the morning and take it down and load it up in late afternoon. We were heavily guarded while we worked. We had armed security guards, helicopters that made regular passages over our area, and city police cruisers that made regular stops.

I felt honored to be able to travel to New Orleans and assist. It was an opportunity that I will never forget, and I would repeat my deployment again to any area hit by disaster, if needed.”

Grace Cottage volunteers Lee & Ginny Hines, of Jamaica, VT, also went south to help. “We were in Biloxi, Mississippi for two weeks, over Christmas,” said Lee. “We were absolutely amazed at the spirit of the people in the face of this disaster.” Bob Crego, project director of Valley Cares, spent the first two weeks of January in Biloxi as well.